Miami

We rented a car and drove down the coast to the Miami Seaquarium. The objective was to give Alex a Dolphin experience similar to the one Jamie had a few years ago.

The Seaquarium is a sort of low key Sea World: they do shows with seals, killer whales and dolphins and have exhibits such as manatee, sharks and reef fish and give keeper talks. We managed to spend a very pleasant afternoon learning about manatee and their rescue and being entertained by some very clever and well trained mammals. The trainers had really taken the training a step further than I’d seen before.

Alex’s dolphin experience was also a success. We had our doubts because Alex can change his mind about doing things if they start to look difficult and he had to put of a wetsuit and bootees and attend a briefing. He was in a small group of three people plus trainer but of course he was the youngest and I was worried that the trainer would take his initial reluctance at face value and he wouldn’t get to properly interact with the dolphins. She didn’t and he did. Here are his comments:

“The dolphins felt very silky – sort of gooey and silky. I learnt how to make a dolphin twirl round. I fed the dolphins. I rode on a dolphin. They felt big to me. I felt very nervous at first but once I’d done a few tricks with them, I got to know them so I didn’t feel so nervous. “